It has been known for long to construct prostheses, and also teeth, from several layers.
It is referred to the solutions known from WO 90/13268 A1 and WO 91/07141 A1 for examples thereof.
Based on these relatively old solutions multi-layered plastic elements produced with the aid of CAD/CAM technology have been suggested recently which serve to produce teeth and prostheses in order to provide for teeth and the prosthesis base to provide for a finished prosthesis. Due to the different requirements to the various materials, namely the gum-colored prosthesis base material on the one hand and the tooth-colored tooth material on the other hand, this suggestion has not yet become established, not even although it has become known otherwise to produce teeth and a prosthesis base from PMMA.
Furthermore, rapid prototyping methods have been suggested recently, aiming to provide teeth and prosthesis bases from a plastic material—or possibly from other materials, too. This development has not yet experienced proper progress either up to now.
On the other hand, with respect to the increasing life expectancy there is an increasing demand for full and partial prostheses, and for reasons of simplicity the term prostheses comprises full as well as partial prostheses herein. This increasing demand is coupled with an also increasing pressure on costs, already due to the considerably increasing demand which is to be expected.